Education, and the willingness of union members to listen and take an interest in such subtle questions, is very important, but in many cases I find the working class has slipped back into delight of their own ignorance on such matters
What a pompous comment
So URTU are too small to represent us properly?
mattecube:
Rjan:
Education, and the willingness of union members to listen and take an interest in such subtle questions, is very important, but in many cases I find the working class has slipped back into delight of their own ignorance on such mattersWhat a pompous comment
Pompous because I’m wrong, or pompous because I’m right? It’s only relatively recently that I’ve seen an uptick in interest, and that’s only following a swingeing 10% wage cut for the British working class in the past few years, and a much longer period of increasing insecurity and oncoming problems like spiralling personal debt. I have often found left-leaning bosses are more interested in and (after prolonged discussion) agreeable to what I have to say, than workers have been.
Kerragy:
So URTU are too small to represent us properly?
The question is not how big or broad your union bureaucracy is, but how solid it’s members are willing to be with you. You can have ten million union members, but if none of them will lift a finger for their fellow workers, then it’s not a union in any meaningful sense.
The RMT for example is a relatively small union, but it represents members who are absolutely solid with each other, and there is enough coverage of members in the rail industry to match the power of the employers in that industry (employers who are currently getting cash from the government to attack and pick fights with unionised workers).
Rjan:
Carryfast:
The point then being that I thought that we’re in agreement,that the idea of breaking up that collective,into smaller autonomous units,is that it then creates a barrier against any such breakdown in solidarity,You can’t be both autonomous and solid on the same questions.
The goodwill of the working class towards industrial action, and the unwillingness of other workers to engage in scab labour is, itself, an important manifestation of solidarity. This is not a natural law, but a commitment of workers not to undermine the industrial action of other workers, so that their own industrial action will not be undermined likewise.
Otherwise, if scab labour is willing, then an employer would usually just readvertise the jobs of strikers, and get other workers to do the work. Frequently, for one reason or another scab labour is willing, often because a small autonomous union is known to be willing to defend its own minority of members, but will not join forces with others when necessary, so eventually the small union loses the general solidarity and goodwill of the working class on which it depends, and scab workers flow in.
Also, if issues can be resolved at a local level by a small union, then usually they are. Nobody would form a large union, if a smaller one would do.
The fact that in Freight Dog’s case, the management won out, suggests that the smaller group did not have the power to impose themselves without support from a much larger membership.
I thought you were in agreement here that you certainly can have seperate autonomous solidarity to drive terms and conditions up.With the difference that,that same seperate autonomy,also means that it provides a safety barrier, against any breakdown in the level of militancy within that collective solidarity,driving them down.IE united we stand but divided we don’t fall because we’ve got the necessary barriers in place,in the form of local,seperate autonomous union recognitions in place,to stop any such moderate breakdown in solidarity being able to over rule any other autonomous more militant group.On that note make your mind up either you support the GMB’s plan to form a local autonomous recognition situation for the Welsh workforce or you don’t.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=140104#p2202965
While in FD’s example the problem seemed to be that the more militant,different in that case,thereby autonomous,union,didn’t follow through with that militancy.By failing to shut down its own seperate autonomous operation as soon as they’d been given the legal backing and confirmation for their position in defying a larger moderate collective deal being forced on them. 
Carryfast:
I thought you were in agreement here that you certainly can have seperate autonomous solidarity to drive terms and conditions up.
But in the situation you have in mind, they’re not autonomous. If you’ve got two hard men both knocking ten bells out of you, and the first smashes you in the face causing you to stumble toward the other, and then the second also smashes you in the face and you go staggering back to the first, and this repeats back and forth, they are not pursuing an autonomous agenda.
The back and forth dance in which each rain blows in turn are just to toy with you, and if you suddenly tried to attack one of them, their strategy would seamlessly change to each attacking you simultaneously (with the man behind you rushing to the defence of the one you launch a frontal attack on). It is the knowledge that they would adopt the simultaneous strategy if necessary, that keeps you playing the game in which you stay on your feet and stagger back and forth between blows, and hope that they stop when they think you’ve had enough - you certainly do not dare to attack either of them, unless you are able and willing to attack both.
With the difference that,that same seperate autonomy,also means that it provides a safety barrier, against any breakdown in the level of militancy within that collective solidarity,driving them down.
If the majority are determined to drive their own pay and conditions down, there is really little the minority can do.
IE united we stand but divided we don’t fall
But divided we do fall. Even the RMT enjoys a certain amount of indulgence from the public and tacit support from other trade unions - if the majority of people in society were determined to smash the train drivers, we could just jail them and bring in their replacements.
What prevents right-wing governments from doing this is the threat of a general strike and widespread unrest, but if the state is willing to smash a union and the threat of a general strike is lost (as with the NUM), then the union is finished.
On that note make your mind up either you support the GMB’s plan to form a local autonomous recognition situation for the Welsh workforce or you don’t.
But the employer does not fear autonomy, because they will just play truly autonomous groups off against each other (as they do with outsourcing and forcing multiple firms to compete for the same work).
What they fear is that, having given into the demands of an “autonomous” group, suddenly other “autonomous” groups will make the same demands, with the risk that the workforce will suddenly resolidify in pursuit of a common agenda (like the example I gave at the beginning of this post, with two mobsters taking turns to knock the daylights out of their target).
Rjan:
Carryfast:
On that note make your mind up either you support the GMB’s plan to form a local autonomous recognition situation for the Welsh workforce or you don’t.
But the employer does not fear autonomy, because they will just play truly autonomous groups off against each other (as they do with outsourcing and forcing multiple firms to compete for the same work).
What they fear is that, having given into the demands of an “autonomous” group, suddenly other “autonomous” groups will make the same demands, with the risk that the workforce will suddenly resolidify in pursuit of a common agenda (like the example I gave at the beginning of this post, with two mobsters taking turns to knock the daylights out of their target).
Realistically in this case we’re just dealing with local autonomy within,or between,different unions based on the idea of more moderate v more militant.
In which case as I said make your mind up.Either you’re saying that the GMB has got it right,in thinking that there’s more chance,that a union made up of smaller autonomous groups acting unilaterally,can be more effective in that regard.As opposed to a single large collective which can be driven towards a counterproductive moderate agenda v a more militant one.While if that isn’t the case what are Lidl worried about and what did you mean within your suggestion that the GMB have got it right.IE a collective made up of small autonomous groups is still a collective which can always co operate to drive up conditions.While using that autonomy to reserve the right to maintain a more militant agenda in that regard v a more moderate one.Unlike a single collective.
As for the mobster analogy yes the NY ‘mob’ and the LA ‘mob’ might unite against the Chicago ‘mob’ operation to dictate worse terms.But there’s not much point when the Chicago ‘mob’ shut down their 30% of the operation without which the other 70% can’t survive because there’s only a 30% return on the operation in total. 
On that note I’m sure that’s how Hoffa would have seen it. 
Carryfast:
Realistically in this case we’re just dealing with local autonomy within,or between,different unions based on the idea of more moderate v more militant.In which case as I said make your mind up.Either you’re saying that the GMB has got it right,in thinking that there’s more chance,that a union made up of smaller autonomous groups acting unilaterally,can be more effective in that regard.
It comes down to what you mean by “autonomous”. Just because a militant part of the workforce goes on strike whilst the majority does not, does not mean they are acting autonomously. The militants may still have the tacit consent and support of the majority to push forward, even if the majority themselves are not willing to take the same action or lodge the same demands as the militants.
Like I say, truly autonomous divisions of the same class, will just be dealt with by divide and conquer.
As opposed to a single large collective which can be driven towards a counterproductive moderate agenda v a more militant one.
Such situations (in which the majority freely decide to head irrevocably to doom) really tend to reflect a fundamental defect in social organisation (including education and cultural reproduction). I suppose unilateral action by militants might work if it “educates” the majority who then quickly come on board and align with the minority, but you’re then talking about some sort of Stalinist tactics in which an embedded minority act upon the majority to influence it, rather than an autonomous minority trying to go it alone.
While if that isn’t the case what are Lidl worried about and what did you mean within your suggestion that the GMB have got it right.IE a collective made up of small autonomous groups is still a collective which can always co operate to drive up conditions.While using that autonomy to reserve the right to maintain a more militant agenda in that regard v a more moderate one.Unlike a single collective.
A single collective can still permit a diversity of action by its constituents. An army with unity of purpose, doesn’t have to present itself on the battlefield as a single front or micromanage every encounter with the enemy.
As for the mobster analogy yes the NY ‘mob’ and the LA ‘mob’ might unite against the Chicago ‘mob’ operation to dictate worse terms.But there’s not much point when the Chicago ‘mob’ shut down their 30% of the operation without which the other 70% can’t survive because there’s only a 30% return on the operation in total.
On that note I’m sure that’s how Hoffa would have seen it.
I don’t quite follow. The mobs were ultimately smashed by the state and spent a lot of time fighting each other. In the scenario I described in my previous post, I had in mind (and thought it was implicit in the scenario) that the two mobsters were in cahoots and worked for the same outfit - the pair of them had gone together to give someone a kicking, and my point was that just because they take turns to inflict the blows, doesn’t mean they’re acting autonomously from each other (nothing could be further from the truth!).